The Art of Writing

For me, writing is the most beautiful form of art.

With that we can express a mixure of fellings, share thoughts, fears, love, passion.
Write requires motivation, a facility with words, a dash of creativity and just enough attribution to add spice and to suggest to the reader, that the author actually reads the words.

A writer needs attitude.

Writes often see grear simplifications and insightful visions of what might be in a perfect world.
I love to read and to write.
I have a blog, where I try to write poems, and where I share some thoughts and states of spirit.
One of my favourite writers is Danielle Steel.
She is a literary phenomenon and her books are translated in more than 80 different languages.
In her bokks, full of passion and life, we are transported to the story, were we live the life of tha characters.
She can comunicate with the readers.I advise, who enjoys these kind of books, to read one of her stories.



Ana

TEA WITH BIRDS
Hallo everybody I’m a dove and I’ve always liked to help the people. I flew everywhere they asked me.
When I was young my family and I lived in the roof in a small city in Ohio. Their roof was comfortable and they were a good family and every day after they eat, john’s mother gave to us the rest of the meal. So, the time passed over and John became a very handsome young man and he decided to study at the Columbia University, New York.
At the first time he continued his studies with all his energy, but the bad company and the big city led him in bad way. He had a lot of problems with drugs and he didn’t study as before.
His parents were worried and his mother asked me if I could to do something for their son. No, she isn’t crazy!...She speaks with me because she knows my secret: I CAN BE A MAN!
I don’t know why, but my father told me that one like me can be born only once in a hundred years.
So one day I went to a house in Mortimer Street, to the same palace where John lived and I became his neighbor.
At the first time I thought it was very strange that a student lived in that lodging house but only at the end of history I knew the truth.
John didn’t believe in him-self, he didn’t talk to his family and the worst point he was that he wasn’t able to love anybody. He had a bad job, bad wages and a lot of hours work.
One week passed over and John was curious to do my acquaintance so one day I invited him into my house to have a tea!
I pretended to be Japanese and that my English was elementary, so we were in quiet silence. He was strange and when the tea smell went in his direction, I knew that he was thinking about his life and his wish to change it. After the tea I vanished but I leaved a present for him on the table in the tiny kitchen: a green tea packet.
I know that the flat near John’s house was empty for same days.
But one day a girl rented it and John met his life’s love, he finished his studies and he became a lawyer.
This is John’s history…
PAY ATTENTION, THE NEXT COULD BE YOU!!!!
Luca Signorelli

When I was young, I remember a lake near my house, when I went a lot of times per month with my friends.
One Sunday, I went alone and I met Martha.
She was really nice, tall, black hair and eyes and I’ve never seen in her something of bad.
Martha gave me her telephone number and she asked me if we could look for a coffee.
So, once after my art lesson at the university, I called her and in front of a cup of coffee I asked her if she want to be my picture model.
I needed a good subject for my art home work.
We went to the lake and I started to paint her.
That work was good , but I’ve never brought it to my art teacher.
The time passed and we got married. We lived in the same city where we met.

We had a daughter, Dorotea who was really nice with the same eyes as her mother.
I am so proud of her, she plays the piano and she is intelligent .
She is the first pupil at the elementary school.
I didn’t ask more at God!
Me, my-self, together with my family liked to go to the lake every Sunday and I had a boat where we liked to have lunch.
So once we went along to the river.
That evening, Dorotea and Martha, enjoyed jumping into the water.
I was sleeping and when I got up, I could not see my two women.
I don’t know why but a strange view passed through my mind and I asked the other boats near mine for help.
That might the coast-guard told me that they found my wife, but my daughter was dead.
I can’t believe it now and I’m specking in the present about her.

Martha became crazy and my love couldn’t do anything and she committed suicide.
I still have Martha’s picture in my room but I miss my life and I’m still afraid to look at my-self in the mirror, because I should have been watching Dorotea when she had funny into the water.

Luca Signorelli

AMERICAN ELECTIONS

Two people, Mark from New York City, and John from Phoenix, were talking about the new President of the United States, Barack Obama.
John and Mark were speaking about the recent American crisis and John asked what Mark thought about it .
He said that he thinks it is worse than the crises of 1929 and he hope s that Obama tries his best in order to fight it. At first John was a little confused and he didn’t answer, so Mark thought that they had two different points of view about politics and he told John about it but at the same time they both hoped all the best for their contry. They kept talking about Obama’s project and about how he’s going to solve the American crisis and to give the American dream back to Americans. John said it isn’t possible for a black person to solve the American problems. After that Mark was a little bit confused and he didn’t believe what he heard .
He explained to John that they live in the 21st century and also that the USA are made of all countries of the world, Europeans, Asians and Africans too and this is what the US rely on. John said it is true but he kept thinking that way about black people and he was afraid of what Fox television said that Obama has a negative past in Indonesia, he has got a brother in Kenya
that he has never heard from and finally he is muslin, after this Mark got angry and he said to his friend that it isn’t possible that he hasn’t his own position and also that he doesn’t believe in mass media.
So Mark started speaking about his political position and the new president. Mark said that Obama is something new in the USA and now it is the first time, after eight years, that the president deals with a new model of world, he talked about international relations, he want to trust other people and rather than frightening than like Bush or Mc. Cain did. Mark finished to said that they need of this change and they can believe it now!.
John was hesitant and he talked about their need of security and not a change, he said that Obama give more taxes only for the public health and he thought that the money must be used for the Iraq war, and for the fight against Islam.
Mark got really mad and explaned his plane for the future and he asked him if it is better to lose human lifes rather than public health. He said that the war was a mistake at since the beginning, because a lot of his friends died, so he doesn’t want that it happens to other people.
John said he was right and Mark would like that USA would be loved by all over the world.
Elena Martini, Luca Signorelli & Francesca Palazzo

We are a group of Italian students and we are going to present an Italian movie that certainly every body had seen. We have chosen this movie for its original way to show the historical event of holocaust during the Second World War.
The director, Benigni examines this event in a different way compared with all the other movies speaking about the same topic.
The movie has two different parts, the first part speaks about the life of Guido, the main character. He is a young Italian Jew, he is a waiter and he meet Dora, a teacher that he call “pricipessa”, princess. Guido and Dora live happy in Arezzo, and they has a child, Joshua (Giosuè).
This first part shows the simple life of Guido during the Second World War, when the racism laws were coming in Italy. The character of Guido, is very bizarre because he is a man very funny and very romantic; he meet his future wife in a lot of strange ways: he land on her, he pop up in front of her and he astonish her every times he meet her. It’s a wonderful romance very good for a laugh. The first part is amusing, romantic and it’s set in a sunny city.
The setting change very quickly when Guido and his son Joshua are taken by Gestapo. Dora is not Jewish, but she choose to join his husband and his son in the concentration camp.
In the second half of the movie, the setting change: the characters are in a concentration camp where Guido try to save the life of his son, hiding him. The most interesting aspect of this movie is what Guido does for Joshua. He doesn’t save only the life of his son, but he permit him to believe that situation is just a game. Joshua will never know where really is. He will never know that there a lot of people are killed for theirs religions. Guido translates what a German camp guard is saying, but Guido has never studied the German language, but he does it just to explain Joshua the rules of the game. Certainly this is a scene very funny and very significant of the movie.
Guido try to hide to Joshua the sad reality where they are, but he convinces Joshua that the first child will get 1,000 points, will wins a tank.
This movie let us to think what a father can do for his 5 years old son. Guido, like all the people that was been in concentration camps, is tired, hungry and understand that they will die, but he maintains the game until the end, until his death, when he imitates the camp guard the will kill him. When Joshua exits from the hiding place where his father told to stay, he discovered that he has won the game because there is an American tank just for him.
The beginning and the ending of the story is commented by an old Joshua that is grateful to his father for the present that he done him.

Curiosities:
-Giorgio Cantarini was just 5 years old when portrayed Joshua. He portrayed the son of Maximum in “The Gladiaotor”.
-The title of this movie is not just an opinion about life, or a consideration about the event in the life of Joshua, but it’s also a quotation from the testament of Leon Trotsky, (one of the leaders of the Russian October Revolution): “Life is beautiful. Let the future generations cleanse it of all evil, oppression and violence, and enjoy it to the full."
-This movie won three Academy Awards in 1999, Best Foreing Language Film, Best Music and Roberto Benigni won for Best Actor. When Sofia Loren, an Italian actress, read the name of the winner of “Best Foreign Language”, Roberto Benigni jumped on all the chairs and thanks everybody with a funny English.

Elena Martini

Are you a coffee addict?

Do you drink overdose of coffee? Can you start your day without a regular injection of caffeine? Are you idle, tired and sleeply, if you can't drink your cup of coffee? If you answered "yes" to any of the above questions, then the chances are that you are a coffee addict. A coffee addict can be defined as someone who is dependent on caffeine. The main symptoms are a compulsion to drink coffee in every hour during the day, especially in the morning, and withdrawal symptoms if you haven't your daily dose, such as weariness, lack of concentration, sense of bewilderment and cunfusion at work, migraine. The root of the problem is the desire to succeed in your profession, and to be always active for bringing your job to a conclusion. Experts warn that coffee addiction is the most common form of addiction among the young workers.

So what can you do if you think you maybe a coffee addict? Make sure you resist the urge to drink it when you are out and between meals. Not only will you feel relaxed, but you may discover that you are a good worker also without coffee.

Francesca Palazzo

Everyone has a personal way to express his personality and his emotions, but someone uses ART to show it and to share his thoughts, feelings or ideals. If we think that ART is a way to create an emotional link between the artist and the audience, we must interpret every work of art like a piece of the personality of the author and like an opportunity to learn something new or just to feel a strong emotion.

Let's think about paintings. The painter uses his canvas and his colours to create something able to communicate a message. A lots of artists, especially painters, have used their skills to show an historical event, but adding a special point of view because an artist can't just describe abjectively, like an historian, but he wants to send emotions. We have seen a lot of painting, representing the some subject, but every single work has a special meaning. If we try to remember all the paint representing, for example, flowers, we fill our mind with different images: every painter felt a different emotion when he created a work of art. Some representations make we very happy, but certainly there are other ones, representing flowers too, that give completely defferent impressions.

In my opinion ART is a "relationship" between the artist and the audience, everybody seeing canvas and if the artist has communicated something to the people who are looking at, well, we can define it as ART, like a work of ART.

We have to consider that a lot of art is inaccesible to everyone, because it requires background knowledge, but we have to remember that not every person has the same emphaty, so the ability of the audience to imagine how another person is, or was feeling, to understand his work, is as important as the skills of the artist.

Elena Martini

Motivation letter to come in Lisbon vs. general opinion about erasmus students' life in Lisbon

Dear Sir/Madam,

since I have decided to begin my University studies, one of my purpose was to move for a period to another european city. I didn’t know exactly what that would mean, in fact I had only heard about other students leaving for ERASMUS and everytime defining that period as one of the most important and beautiful of therir life.
Now, three years later, I can better understand how important could be in the modern society this kind of experience. So even deciding whether to leave is not easy, especially if it means leaving behind one’s home, family and friends for a long period, I decided to catch this incredible opportunity.

I am in the middle of my academical studies, attending the third year of Foreign Languages, and going to get my first degree in 6 months. During this period I have also joined an international student association, called BESL (Board of European Student of Languages) that allowed me the opportunity to travel all over Europe attending short courses, workshops and competition. It also improved my skill in organising and getting in contact with people. I am a dynamic person, I like to travel, meet new people and get to know other countries with their traditions and cultures. Nowadays I cannot imagine my life without travelling.

So I think to be ready to undertake the challenge of living abroad for six (or more) months. I believe that it could be a unique opportunity to increase my ability in every field, academical, social, and practical. For istance I could learn how to live by myself, organise my time, find out a different way of thinking, more indipendent and consciouss. It could be also a great opportunity to discover a lot of opportunities for my future career, and get involved in a more international background.

Personally I have never been in Portugal, but I have meet many people from Lisbon and Porto, and I have realized that if all people in Portugal are like them, it should be really a great country.
Moreover I have a friend studying in Universidade Nova de Lisboa, that is now attending the Erasmus in my here at University of Florence, and he gave me really good credentials of his university, about the teaching methods, the general organization, and the social activities.

I am aware that studying abroad, attending lessons in another language and creating new friendships could be not so easy. Nevertheless, I am convinced that this experience could help me to reach my highest potential, stimulate my intellectual curiosity and improve my ability to think creatively and analytically about a wide range of topics.

vs.

Sleep -- Struggle to get out of bed -- Take your laptop in bed -- Dieing of pain of feeling hungry in bed. -- Go to a fastfood restaurant and discover it's already dark outside. -- Get the first beer of the day -- Try to remember the last evening -- Call other ones and ask if you did something stupid -- Start to plan the next evening --Check your current account --Start to act the plan --Go to four parties during a night --Drunk again -- Sleep -- Struggle to get...

Elena Martini

Poggio a Caiano,
a kind town, where you will be welcomed by colours and flowers!


One of the most peasant surprise of Tuscany is the small village of Poggio a Caiano, situated between the Florentine hills. Poggio a Caiano is an unusual tourist destination, but you are invited to visit this little town. Poggio a Caiano is born between three important Tuscan cities: Florence, Prato and Pistoia, and, for this reason, you can easily reach it. There you can find a developed and modern town, plunged into a Renaissance atmosphere. A visit to this delightful village is like going back to the Medici’s time, in fact, on the top of the knoll, there is the wonderful “Villa Medicea”. Surrounded by a suggestive garden, the Villa is one of the most attraction of the town. It was built at the end of the XVI century by Giuliano da San Gallo, wanted by Medici’s family, and it was decorated by the most important artists of the time, such as Pontormo, Giambologna, and Andrea Del Sarto. Once the Villa was the summer residence of Lorenzo il Magnifico and his family. He chose this position for the strategic view of the zone, in this way he could prevent enemies attacks.
If you are thinking to visit Poggio a Caiano, you should get into the Villa and take a look at the
great variety of trees and flowers present in the curtain garden, where you can also see a century tree.
Another Renaissance element is the Barco park, that once it was part of the Villa’s garden, then it was used to hunt and for curtain games; for Poggio a Caiano’s inhabitants is a place to relax, where you can stroll around, and do picnic or you can simply find a bench where sit yourself in spring an summer. Not with standing there are a lot of things to see in this town, you can get everywhere on foot, so if you want a tip, be sure to put on you walking shoes. From the Barco park, you can easily reach the most ancient church of Prato’s province: San Francisco church, on Bonistallo hillock. Nowadays this medieval church is only a interesting place to visit, but the church of the community is another, the most recent.
Poggio a Caiano is not only famous for its history, but also for food specialities that you can taste in tipical restaurants. One of this speciality is called “migliaccio” and it is simply spice blood cooked like a crepes; another is “ribollita”, a soup made of bread and vegetable. Logically you can eat the incredible “fiorentina”, the most famous steack of the world! But you can’t appreciate it without the most vintage wines of the Tuscan region: Chianti or Brunello di Montalcino.
If you visit Poggio a Caiano in the third week of September, you can partecipate at the “Assedio alla Villa”, a popular event that took his origin from a medieval attack to the village and his Villa.
Poggio a Caiano’s inhabitants won the battle with the aid of their wine, so, the feast starts with the opening of the wine fountain, a very suggestive tradition. A lot of people, above all young people, take part to the parade composed by the typical medieval costumes. The last day of the “Assedio” the Villa Medicea is decorated by the lights and the colours of the fireworks.
If you are planning about where to go to sleep, don’t worry, because in this kind town there is a
great choice: the best is “Hotel Hermitage”, on Bonistallo hill. It has a pool surrounded by great
pines and it has a very wonderful dining room, usually used for marriage. The position of this hotel is very favourable and there is no problem for parking, because is not very trafficated. Here double rooms cost at least 60€ for a night.
From Poggio a Caiano you can reach a lot of interesting places, such as Artimino and Carmignano, where you can enjoy the attractive and romantic panorama of Florence and his closeness. Here there is another Villa, called “La Ferdinanda”, characterised by his “thousand” chimneys.

Elena Martini